16 March, 2017

LG Lures G6 Shoppers With A Free Google Home

LG is giving away a $129 Google Home music-playing assistant to anyone who orders its flagship G6 device (arriving in stores on April 7th) from T-Mobile, AT&T and other carriers prior to the end of April. The handset will be one of the first non-Pixel handset to get Google Assistant, so the promotional push does make a certain amount of sense -- buyers will be able to use the AI helper on either device.

Home, as you likely know by now, is Google's Echo-like AI voice helper that uses Google Assistant instead of Amazon's Alexa.
Given that it just launched recently, it has limited capabilities compared to the rival device, but it does use Google's massive and sophisticated search engine -- for better or for worse.
Up until now, you could only access Assistant via Home, Google's Allo chat app and Pixel phones, but the search giant recently announced that it would roll out to other recent Android phones as well.

T-Mobile carriers will pay $26 down and $26 a month for two years for a total $650 price, while AT&T will let buyers have it via the Next phone trade-up program for $24 a month over 30 months.
However, AT&T is also throwing in a second LG G6, assuming you add an additional line on your Next program, and giving buyers the option to pick up an LG Watch Sport for $50. (You might need a PhD to figure out which carrier has the better deal.)

T-Mobile will start selling the G6 when it arrives on April 7th, but AT&T is opening up pre-orders starting tomorrow (March 17th).
Given past sales numbers on its last few flagships, supply shouldn't really be a problem, but LG is no doubt hoping the G6 will change that. The offer expires on April 30th.